Fear of Being Found Out?
Celtic have now released all their correspondence with the SFA over the repeated requests for an independent Inquiry into all aspects of the governance and decisions that have been made in Scottish Football over the last 6 – 7 years. In response to this and the SPFL request the SFA have said no. The phrase that stuck out for me in the SFA statement was that they would not co-operate with any independent enquiry.
Not co-operate…with ANY enquiry.
Many of us will work in industries with regulation, compliance and ombudsman schemes. In such industries this external route of complaint for the public is there for when the internal complaints process has failed and we will work as hard as we can to ensure that the issues causing rise to complaint are dealt with before it gets to this independent arbiter. We also will be prepared for dealing with such an eventuality. Humans make mistakes and no matter what systems and processes we put in place errors will occur. It is therefore vital that record keeping is accurate and all transactions are done in good faith. It’s the only way to protect the business when the mistakes occur.
The position of the SFA that there are no circumstances that they will co-operate with any independent enquiry is very odd. They are the governing body who oversee the application and implementation of the rules. if anyone should have the right systems and processes it should be them. Afterall it’s their systems, their processes. So what are they afraid of?
All organisations, even those not governed by independent regulatory bodies will require to be audited from time to time and that must include the SFA. In the first decades of this century we have seen our national side qualify for NO international tournaments. In the first decades of this century we have seen the performances of our lesser club sides in Europe continue to deteriorate. In the first decades of this century we have seen our referees go on strike after the dishonesty of some of their number was exposed and in the first decades of this century we have seen one of our two biggest football clubs close its doors. Surely all of that merits review and investigation?
Those of us working within regulatory environments do not welcome the involvement of external bodies reviewing our work but we accept it. We accept and acknowledge that the existence of such bodies provides comfort to the public and if we are confident in our systems and processes we can be comfortable that an external review will find only an issue with human error. If we have a bad apple in our ranks, if we’ve hidden a problem or if we’ve contributed to the issues then investigation by external parties is the last thing we’d want and when you fear someone finding out the truth it’s maybe better to get out before you’re found out.
